After finally attaining true peace, everyone’s favorite Gundam pilots split and go their separate ways. However, one certain little girl doesn’t seem to like the new lifestyle set by the end of the war. That girl is Treize Khushrenada’s daughter, Marie Maia Khushrenada. After plotting for one year, she and her accomplices bring back the deceased ‘Operation Meteor’ and force the five Gundam pilots to reunite with their Gundams and save Earth.

Seeing the huge success of Gundam Wing, Sunrise took the opportunity to cash in, and made a sequel entitled Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. However, is Endless Waltz truly worthy of all the hype surrounding it?

First things first, if you haven’t seen Gundam Wing yet, I recommend you do so before watching Endless Waltz, or at a bare minimum come in with a comprehensive understanding of GW’s plot and characters. Trust me it saves a whole lot of confusion on what the heck everyone is talking about. The anime itself is very philosophical on a very in depth level. The anime surrounds many questions people in today’s society raise, such as “is peace worth so many lives?” and “is true peace attainable given human nature?” The creators of the movie do a good job of giving well thought out philosophical questions and then addressing them via the story and characters for the most part, except for a few parts. Thankfully the anime doesn’t concentrate on philosophy alone; it extends to give viewers an entertainment side to which most anti-philosophical people can learn to love.

Putting aside the philosophy for a while, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz is a good standalone movie, but when placed in with the series, it becomes just a cash cow. Don’t get me wrong the movie was ok, despite the clichéd plot which was extremely dull and had the potential to be much better. The animation in this anime was a great improvement from its predecessors. The mecha designs are taken to a whole new level and the coloring adds to a variety which hasn’t been seen in previous Gundam series, which used the usual color schemes of grays, blues, whites, yellows and greens for the majority of the mecha. Another big success I find in GW: EW is the music. The music fit the mood of the anime’s most crucial points. White Reflection by TWO-MIX was the best song in the whole movie. It really comes out and grabs the viewer.

The one major flaw in this movie is the characters. The characters in the movie were extremely dull and had virtually no character development; most of the movie was taken up in getting the characters from Point A to point B. Although it was entirely possible to have some character development while the events occurred, no sign of that happening ever occurred. The majority of these characters showed no signs of being developed and came out flat and 1-D.

Overall, the anime is decent in all areas. With vibrant colors to catchy music to a decent storyline and deep philosophical questions, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz has something for all anime lovers, just don’t go searching for original plot because it doesn’t exist.